Two Weeks Until My Book Release—A Reflection on Pocahontas Cemetery

In just about two weeks, Haunted Virginia Cemeteries will be released. As I count down the days, I’m also deeply immersed in the work that led to this book: honoring memory, summoning stories, and yes, even preparing for a séance later this week (more on that soon). 

This week is a full one. I’ll be leading the TLA Community Circle via Zoom tomorrow evening and leading a Meandering Among the Markers event in Richmond’s Hollywood Cemetery on Wednesday morning. 

As I think about conjuring spirits, my thoughts return to my own family story—my grandfather, Stanley Pajka, a coal miner in Luzerne, Pennsylvania, who died of tuberculosis at forty-four. My father was just a child, unable to hug his “Pop” during those long, isolated months in a sanitorium. 

That history echoed strongly during my trip to Tazewell County, Virginia, where I visited Pocahontas Cemetery, established after the tragic 1884 mine explosion that killed at least 114 men. Walking among the graves, I saw inscriptions in Polish, Russian, Hungarian, Italian, and English, reminders of the immigrant labor recruited to Appalachia by coal barons, far from the American dream they were promised. 

Like the towns I visited in my childhood, Pocahontas is steeped in memory and haunted by loss. Ghostly sightings and unexplained phenomena persist in the cemetery. With recent state funding for restoration, including ground-penetrating radar to locate lost graves, perhaps the spirits are stirred by our renewed attention. 

A century after the disaster, Historic Pocahontas Inc. erected a memorial near Centre Street. Every year, the town holds a candlelight vigil to honor the miners. The dead are not forgotten, and their presence, I believe, is still felt. 

Stay tuned as I share more stories from the road and behind the veil. The ghosts are ready. Are you?